I want to flag a couple of upcoming events for intrepid Power Line readers. First, for Chicago area readers, this Friday morning at 9 am, May 3, I shall be on a panel at the Blackstone Hotel on Michigan Avenue downtown on the subject “Poland & the US in Defense of Freedom: From Defeating Communism to Preserving National Sovereignty.” The event is sponsored by Polish National Foundation, the Victims of Communism »

As Scott noted this morning, David Burge (better known perhaps as “Iowahawk”) has introduced a competing award to Power Line’s coveted Green Weenie. His is the Grand Carbonator Award, but just as the Oscars have the People’s Choice Awards and other competitors, and the Nobel Prize has to compete with the MacArthur “Dunce” Awards*, there is plenty of room for other awards in this domain. We haven’t given out as »

I’ll bet you didn’t know you need a federal disaster management plan for your pet rabbit if you use your pet rabbit as part of a magic act for birthday parties. Well, you did, until the U.S. Department of Agriculture got embarrassed by the adverse publicity for this abject stupidity, but it is of a piece with the proposed European Union regulation on the proper length and curvature of bananas »

Somewhere I am sure there’s a medieval German dictionary with the archaic term Bidenfreude, which means “taking delight in the spectacle of drooling old guys with hair plugs pretending to be ‘woke.'” But what the heck, if the Strolling Bones can still strut on stage in their late 70s, why not the Groovin Groper? In 1992 someone asked Bill Clinton whether he wore boxers or briefs. I want someone to »

Back when I was writing a book with Joel Schwartz on conventional air pollution around 2005, we were struck how the media everywhere covered the issue with a reverse Lake Woebegone effect: our local area has “some of the worst” air pollution in the whole country! Of course, even without looking at the actual data, this is obviously nonsense—if everywhere has “some of the worst” air pollution, then nowhere is »

Paul wrote earlier this week here and here about the case of an AP history textbook, By the People: A History of the United States, whose leftist bias is so egregious that you’d be better off having your kid not take AP history at all. That textbook is not, sadly, a rare example of leftist bias in primary school textbooks. Is there any remedy available? We’re very happy to report »

• News you can use: The Power Line podcast is now available on Spotify! And as a reminder, if you aren’t listening regularly, please consider subscribing, and even if you are neither a subscriber or listener, you might consider leaving a brief review and five-star rating for the show on iTunes. It helps us build an audience. • So Biden is in. Fun times ahead. I still don’t see the »

It is long past time to revisit the Green Nude Eel, or whatever fantasy the climatistas have in mind. My pal Ben Zycher has a comprehensive analysis of it out this week from AEI, The Green New Deal: Economics and Policy Analytics. Ben is a superb quantitative analyst of these matters, to which he adds a refreshing and blunt directness in his conclusions: The GND’s central premise is that such »

It is a commonplace of Illinois politics that each new governor has a prison cell fitted out for him along with his election certification. And sure as the swallows return to Capistrano, Illinois’s new Democratic Governor Jay Pritzker is under investigation for tax evasion. But this story is important for more than just illustrating the usual Illinois chronic political corruption. Pritzker comes from one of the wealthiest families in America, »

I have heard a number of left-leaning professors dismiss tales of ideological craziness and extremism on campus as just “isolated incidents”—mere anecdotes to be dismissed as little more than a craze that will pass like the Hula-Hoop. But at some point, the plural of anecdote is “data,” and I wonder just how many “anecdotes” of campus insanity are necessary before the “pattern recognition” of social science or anthropology kicks in. »

• I know yesterday was Earth Day, but did you know that people are so apathetic about Earth Day that the greenies turned it into “Earth Week” quite a while ago, as though that will help. In any case, if you’re up for an epic rant about the matter, I recorded a special Earth Day podcast yesterday with my pals at the Pacific Research Institute, and you can listen to »

As has been obvious for some time now, “diversity” is an Orwellian term that means everyone looks different, but thinks the same. The enforced narrow conformity of the diversicrats cannot survive the real world for very long (college campuses, being insulated from reality, are another matter), and sure enough, it appears that James Damore, the software engineer fired from Google for doubleplusungoodwrongthink about diversity, will have to share his cell »

Happy Groundhog Day Earth Day everybody! You can see how it is possible to confuse the two, since Earth Day is the same every year—we’re doomed unless you hand over complete power to the government to manage people and resources. Think I exaggerate? Well, here’s The Guardian to remind us once again: Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it? By Phil McDuff limate »

Just in time for your Easter Sunday afternoon walk or Monday morning commute, the latest podcast. Gene Dattel is my extraordinary guest on this week’s show. Gene is the author of a book that deserves to be much better known—Reckoning With Race: America’s Failure (Encounter Books). This remarkably compact book is brimming with details about and revisions to the standard narratives of race relations in America from the colonial era »

Recently I had a conversation with a prominent political scientist from one of our most elite universities—I won’t name either since I haven’t been able to verify what he told me—who said that last year this particular university graduated only two majors in English literature. Not two graduate students—just two majors in the entire undergraduate senior class. (I’ll only go so far as to say that this particular university is »

The left’s obsession with Trump Russia Collusion and Obstruction has become the dead parrot sketch of American politics. It’s pushing up daisies, singing to the choir invisible. It’s an ex-scandal. No, CNN, it’s not just stunned, or pining for the fjords of decent ratings. The fat lady is singing. In fact she’s back in her dressing room starting her low-carb diet. It’s more over than your grandma’s overcooked roast beef. CNN »

Ronald Reagan liked to joke that the closest thing you’ll ever find to eternal life on earth is a federal program. He underestimated the possibilities of a Justice Department antitrust suit. I was stunned earlier this week to read in the Wall Street Journal that the famous antitrust lawsuit against Standard Oil that broke up John D. Rockefeller’s massive creation and decided at the Supreme Court in 1911 was still »